Mar 13 1966
From The Space Library
NASA Nike-Apache sounding rocket launched from Churchill Research Range was third and last flight [see Feb. 9 and 16] in series of GSFC experiments to measure number and distribution of electrons in energy range of 1-300 kev, which produce visual aurora. Although radar lost track early in flight and peak altitude was not available, rocket performance was near predicted and series was considered completely successful. ‘‘(NASA Rpt. SRL)’’
Formation of Science Advisory Committee, composed of astronomers, biologists, physicists, and geologists from eight universities, to advise NASA on conduct of future space projects was announced by NASA Administrator James E. Webb. Chaired by Dr. Norman F. Ramsey, Harvard Univ. physicist, committee would work directly with Dr. Homer E. Newell, NASA Associate Administrator for Space Science and Applications, but would study future space activities on NASA-wide basis, including manned and unmanned flight programs. In particular, it would review how best to conduct such programs as Voyager planetary spacecraft, including automated biological laboratory, post-Apollo lunar exploration program, and National Space Astronomy Observations projects recommended by NAS Space Science Board. ‘‘(NASA Release 66-55)’’
US. would land a man on the moon before 1970 and before the Russians, predicted Astronaut Walter M. Schirra, Jr., at a news conference held with Astronaut Frank Borman in Sydney, Australia. Schirra said US. space program had completed three basic requirements for a manned lunar landing: 14-day spaceflight, ability to rendezvous in space, and controlled reentry into earth’s atmosphere. Astronauts Schirra and Borman were visiting Australia on their eight-nation good-will tour of Asia. ‘‘(Reuters, NYT, 3/14/66, 6)’’
Gradual and unusually frank disclosures by U.S.S.R. confirming failures of VENUS II and VENUS III missions were discussed by Evert Clark in the New York Times. He noted Soviet scientists’ admission that VENUS III’s trajectory would have missed the planet by 37,500 mi.-passing Venus when neither object would have been visible in Moscow-had its trajectory not been corrected by Dec. 27 radio command, and that VENUS III had failed to eject landing sphere covered with heat-protective material to measure temperature and pressure at planet’s surface. ‘‘(Clark, NYT, 3/14/66, 7)’’
US. physics was facing severe shortage of funds necessary to sustain progress in research and education, concluded NAS Physics Survey Committee in its report Physics: Survey and Outlook. Report recommended that physics support by Federal agencies be increased by 1969 to two and one-half times the 1963 $500-million level for physics and astronomy. Assessing US. strength in six subfields, report noted for astrophysics “a pressing need for more observational facilities.” Based on 1964-65 studies by an 18-member group headed by George E. Pake, Provost of Washington Univ., St. Louis, report stated: “Our strength in observational astrophysics with optical telescopes has long been established with the 200-in. telescope on Mount Palomar, but we have many more bright astrophysicists and astronomers than have access to the two US telescopes most suited for frontier research. Our relative strength will be altered with the implementation of plans for construction of several large telescopes in the Soviet Union. Any nation can, by placing a large telescope in the Southern Hemisphere, assume leadership in the observational astronomy of stellar evolution and cosmology, because. the Magellanic Clouds are the nearest of all external galaxies. The United States has taken the initiative in the expensive but highly promising field of space-based optical and x-ray astronomy. “In radio astronomy the United States now has an impressive group of major radio telescopes, but the US position is not preeminent. Even the new instruments nearing completion at the California Institute of Technology and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory are inferior to existing instruments in Australia and the Soviet Union and to large new crosstype arrays nearing completion near Sydney and Moscow. The US position in space physics and cosmic radiation is good, with some question whether present conditions permit further strengthening of that position. Research on gravitation is at present not a large sector of research, but the US effort is of very high quality and is being increasingly recognized.” ‘‘(NAS Release; Science, 3/18/66, 1363-6; Physics Today, 4/66, 23-36)’’
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